E3 2003: Futurama Hands-On

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Go on a bender with Fry and the guys.

By Justin Thompson

In many gaming circles, the word "licensed" is nearly synonymous with "not very good." While there are certainly exceptions, such as Spider-Man and Goldeneye, most games based on TV shows, movies, comics and so on just fail to capture the magic of their source material. The upcoming Futurama game looks like its shaping up to be one of the exceptions.

Developed by Unique Development Studios for the PS2, Xbox and GameCube, Futurama is a third-person action/adventure that follows the cast of the television show as they try to stop an evil businesswoman named Mom from turning the earth into a giant spaceship bent on intergalactic conquest.

Out of the four characters that will be available in the final game (Bender, Fry, Leela and Dr. Zoidberg), we only saw gameplay with Fry and Bender. Fry fights with weapons ranging from futuristic shotguns, to futuristic pistols to a good old-fashioned hammer. Bender, on the other hand, excels in hand-to-hand combat.

Regardless of which character you're playing as, the controls stay pretty much the same. You've got attack, jump and action buttons, as well as buttons for switching between items and entering a very handy first-person view. It's all pretty intuitive and comfortable.

Along with the standard third person action, we saw a segment where Fry controlled a giant robotic chicken. The view switched to first person and Fry was able to shoot the bejeesus out of all the annoying little robots littering the streets. Good stuff.

Nearly as interesting as the game itself are the copious cutscenes. Penned by screenwriters from the show, these clips are long, funny and on par with an episode of the show. In fact, when you unlock them all, you can watch them in a row as what basically amounts to a CG episode of Futurama.

When the first screenshots of Futurama were released a month or so ago, I have to confess that they didn't exactly get me excited about the game. While the game does look a tad unimpressive in still images, it looks pretty damn beautiful in motion.

Thanks in large part to the game's cel shading, it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish whether you're looking at Futurama the game or Futurama the TV show. Every single character and environment from the show look virtually identical to their on-air counterparts, and those places and people who are new all fit seamlessly within the visual style of the Futurama universe. Color me impressed.

As is so often the case, the hue and cry of the E3 show floor made it impossible to get a good listen at the game's sound. On the few occasions when I was able to make out a little sound, it seemed to jive pretty well with the show. The theme song is there, and all of the characters are voiced by their respective actors from the show.

To be completely honest, I'm shocked with how well this game is turning out. While I had serious reservations about the title initially, those doubts have all but disappeared. Futurama captures the essence of its source material absolutely perfectly, and that's kind of the point of licensed games. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it plays pretty good too.